


Far From The

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hatter wasn't brought up in the most traditional of ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far From The

**Author's Note:**

> Totally rampant speculation as to the aging of Wonderlanders. Written for [](http://waffies.livejournal.com/profile)[**waffies**](http://waffies.livejournal.com/) for [](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/) and is really super late, skdlfj orz.

Hatter grows up on stories of his one great ancestor. The only bit of respectability his family has left to cling on to. The Mad Hatter, they called him.

Well. For certain values of 'they', that is. At the moment, it's mostly just his mother, the two of them sitting in his dusty little room. It's always been the two of them, ever since Hatter can remember. He thinks that his mother is beautiful, in the same way that the piles of items for sale at the pawn shops down by the market are beautiful. However much dirt or grease might be caked on them, they're always something intriguing about them, the piles of watches and stacks of rings. Hatter's favorite spot is in the corner of the smallest shop, which is taken up completely by a huge coat rack and a wobbly old hat tree.

Hatter's mother is thin, gangly woman, with stringy brown hair she keeps pulled and clasped over the front of one shoulder. Her eyes are very large and very dark. Her dresses are usually frayed at the ends, but her coat is never in anything but the best shape. It's purple and velvet and fitted, and it's the finest thing either of them own.

And it's just the two of them, in their little shabby cottage near the river, always this close to falling down but never quite having the energy to get there.

\---

His mother is a wonderful teacher, Hatter likes to think, although how would he know? She's the only one he's ever had, of course. But Hatter has never been one to admit shortcomings in any area. Maybe she's a terrible teacher, but it's not as if matters. Hatter would never know the difference.

The lessons are always cobbled together, patched up from thinks that she knows and Oyster books that get washed up on the river. Hatter asks her, one day, how it is that they end up there.

"The same way anything or anyone ends up anywhere," she says. "Someone gets tired of them, and throws them away. And eventually somebody picks them up again."

Hatter hasn't the slightest idea what she means, but he knows that asking his mother a question twice will do nothing but earn him a withering look or lose him his supper, depending on her mood. He asks a friend of his instead, a girl about his age, whose house is a short walk from his along the river. They play tag in the reeds whenever they manage to sneak away.

"Don't you know what this river _is_ , huh, stupid?" she asks him, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking her head at him. "We're downstream of the Looking Glass, that's how come. _Every_ one knows that."

Hatter glares and runs after her, and soon enough they're playing another game of tag.

\---

She tells him stories, sometimes. After the day's lessons have been finished or she's become so tired of his (quite skillful, by the way) attempts at diverting her attention that she's simply given up, she'll pull out one of the scavenged story books from under the bed, or pull out a dusty story from inside her own head and polish it until it shines.

Stories are something that Hatter's mother is rather good at. Sometimes, whatever tale she's spinning will become dull (this tends to happen whenever she uses the Oyster textbooks, the ones that say HISTORY on them in bold letters), and Hatter's attention will wander. Then the story will change, twist itself into something different, and altogether much more exciting. His mother's always been good at that.

Hatter isn't the sort of child who needs to have a story read to him over and over again. But perhaps his mother is the sort of person who needs to tell one more than once, because there's one that Hatter's heard more times than he can count. He supposes it makes sense. The Mad Hatter, the last good thing his family has to think back on. Hatter couldn't care less about his famous ancestor, who supposedly was an ally to Alice of Legend. He doubts it's true, anyway. Not that he thinks his mother has been lying to him, of course. His mother does not lie, or at least, not to him. If she doesn't wish to tell him something, she'll tell him so flat out.

It's probably a made up story, though. Perhaps her mother or her father told it to her, and she believed it. No one really knows for sure, anymore. The Mad Hatter vanished, not long after Hatter was born. He wasn't young, but he wasn't _old_ , not by Wonderlander's standards.

The story goes something like this:

There was a man, once. He wasn't especially extraordinary, not really. Not in the way that got stories told about him. But he was a man, and for the most part, he was happy. He grew up in a nice family, with plenty of friends, and he never wanted for anything, not really. The man was called the Mad Hatter, because of his generosity and the fact that he knew how to have a mad, mad time of it.

He met a girl. She was beautiful, or he thought so, one could never tell, with love. Of course, he loved her. He loved her and they were married, and for years and years, they were happy.

Then a darkness came, not just over them but over the whole land, and for a long time it was chaos and madness. The woman became pregnant, not long before everything was put back the way it ought to be, although neither of them knew it. Neither of them knew that the Mad Hatter would never meet the child.

And then once again, the Mad Hatter met a girl. Her name was Alice, and she would be remembered in Wonderland for years to come. He helped her, because it was her that set everything to rights again.

After it was all said and done, she had to leave, because this world was not her own, and she could not bear to stay away from where she belonged. So she left, and the Mad Hatter followed her, because for his part, he could not bear to be away from her.

Perhaps he came back, one day. If he did, not a soul knew of it.

\---

Hatter sometimes teases his mother, because it's fun and she knows perfectly well he doesn't really _mean_ it. He tells her, you teach me plenty from these books, but aren't you supposed to teach me how to live? Moral upbringing, and all that.

For once, she answers him back. "All right then. One lesson I have for you," says his mother. "Just the one. Enjoy it while it lasts, yeah?"

Hatter refrains from pointing out that 'enjoy it while it lasts' could be considered a lesson, just to be contrary, because his mother would probably agree with him and never tell him what she had been planning to say in the first place.

"If you love something," she says, "Don't you dare listen to those bastards, don't you dare let it go. You hold onto it tight and you never, ever give it up."

His mother is gripping the coverlet so tightly that her knuckles are white, and her eyes are shining so bright they almost glow in the shadowy room. Hatter, wisely, says nothing, and simply nods.

\---

One day, when he is no longer a child, not by anybody's standards, Hatter realizes why it is, exactly, that his mother sometimes cries when she tells him the Mad Hatter's story. It occurs to him, rather suddenly, that the woman who is not Alice is hardly included in anyone else's recounting of the story, or if she is, it is only a brief mention.

He stops asking about his father.

\---

Hatter stops by to see his mother, before he goes through the Looking Glass. She still lives in the same run-down cottage, even though he offered to help her find another place. Hatter thinks that she's simply afraid that if she leaves, his father wouldn't know where to find her. He never says it.

His mother is old, by now, old enough that Alice wouldn't believe her age if Hatter were to tell her. Not weak, though, and certainly strong enough to throw a glass just to the left of Hatter's head when he tells her he's going.

He flinches, but keeps his arms crossed over his chest. His mother's face finally cracks into a smile, and she shoos him off.

"Maybe you do listen to me after all," she says. "Hurry up, won't you?"


End file.
